Keynote address by Hon. Robert K. Rae, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy

Organized by Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, National Autonomous University of Mexico and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. The objective of the North American Colloquium is to provide a forum that strengtens a wider North American Conversation and more fruitful trilateral cooperation between Canada, Mexico and the US. Colloquium will allow for distinct internal/regional and indigenous perspectives within each country to be showcased. The Colloquium will engage policy-makers with leading scholars and practitioners in all three jurisdictions, broadening the range of viewpoints accessible to leading decision-makers in North America. This conference brings together experts and decision-makers across a wide range of fields to look back, and ahead, at NAFTA. The conference is organized around four themes:

Bob Rae was elected eleven times to the House of Commons and the Ontario legislature between 1978 and 2013. He was Ontario’s 21st Premier from 1990 to 1995, and served as interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 2011 to 2013. He was named “Parliamentarian of the Year” by his colleagues in the House of Commons in 2011 and received a “Lifetime Achievement Award” from the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians in 2018.

He is working now as a lawyer, negotiator, mediator, and arbitrator, with a particular focus on first nations, aboriginal, and governance issues.He is a Fellow of the Forum of Federations, and teaches at the University of Toronto in the Faculty of Law, Massey College, and Victoria College, and is a widely respected writer and commentator.

An author of five books (most recently, the best selling What’s Happened to Politics) and many studies and reports, Bob Rae is a Privy Councillor, a Companion of the Order of Canada, a member of the Order of Ontario, and has numerous awards and honorary degrees from institutions in Canada and around the world.